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64- 


•Barbara  lydnstork   Lectures  on 
Corals  of  CraBe 


SOCIAL  JUSTICE  WITHOUT  SOCIALISM. 
By  JOHN  BATES  CLARK. 

THE  CONFLICT  BETWEEN  PRIVATE  MO- 
NOPOLY AND  GOOD  CITIZENSHIP.  By 
JOHN  GRAHAM  BROOKS. 

COMMERCIALISM  AND  JOURNALISM.  By 
HAMILTON  HOLT. 

THE  BUSINESS  CAREER  IN  ITS  PUBLIC 
RELATIONS.  By  ALBERT  SHAW. 


SOCIAL    JUSTICE 
WITHOUT    SOCIALISM 


SOCIAL  JUSTICE 

WITHOUT  SOCIALISM 


BY 


JOHN    BATES   CLARK 

PROFESSOR   OF    POLITICAL    ECONOMY   AT 
COLUMBIA   UNIVERSITY 


BOSTON    AND    NEW    YORK 

HOUGHTON   MIFFLIN   COMPANY 

(tfce  ftfortfitie  ptc«g  Cambridge 

1914 


COPYRIGHT,    1914,   BY  THE   REGENTS  OF  THE 
UNIVERSITY  OF   CALIFORNIA 


ALL    RIGHTS    RESERVED 


Published  Apri 


C.5" 


58491 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
SANTA  BARBARA  COLLEGE  LIBRARY 


BARBARA  WEINSTOCK 

LECTURES  ON  THE  MORALS 

OF  TRADE 

This  series  will  contain  essays  by 
representative  scholars  and  men  of 
affairs  dealing  with  the  various  phases 
of  the  moral  law  in  its  bearing  on 
business  life  under  the  new  economic 
order,  first  delivered  at  the  University 
of  California  on  the  Weinstock  founda- 
tion. 


SOCIAL   JUSTICE 
WITHOUT    SOCIALISM 

IT  is  currently  reported  that  the  late 
King  Edward  once  said,  "We  are  all 
Socialists,  now"  :  and  if  the  term  "So- 
cialism" meant  to-day  what  His  Majesty 
probably  meant  by  it,  many  of  us  could 
truthfully  make  a  similar  statement. 
Without  any  doubt,  we  could  do  so  if  we 
attached  to  the  term  the  meaning  which 
it  had  when  it  was  first  invented.  It  came 
into  use  in  the  thirties  of  the  last  century, 
and  expressed  a  certain  disappointment 
over  the  result  of  political  reform.  The 
bill  which  gave  more  men  the  right  to 
vote  did  not  give  them  higher  wages.  The 


a  SOCIAL  JUSTICE 

conditions  of  labor  were  deplorable  be- 
fore the  Reform  Bill  was  passed  and  they 
continued  to  be  so  for  some  time  after- 
wards. A  merely  political  change,  there- 
fore, was  not  all  that  was  wanted,  and  it 
was  necessary  to  carry  democracy  into  a 
social  sphere  in  order  to  improve  the  con- 
dition of  the  poorer  classes.  The  term 
"  Socialism,"  therefore,  was  chosen  to 
describe  a  play  of  forces  that  would  act 
in  this  way  on  society  itself,  and  was  an 
excellent  term  for  describing  this  right 
and  just  tendency.  The  name  was  quickly 
adopted  by  those  with  whose  practical 
plans  most  of  us  do  not  agree  ;  but  its 
original  idea  was  democracy  carried  into 
business,  and  at  present  that  is  the  domi- 
nant tendency  of  all  successful  parties. 


WITHOUT   SOCIALISM  3 

For  six  months  we  have  been  living  un- 
der what  may  be  called  "  triumphant 
democracy,"  not  because  the  Democratic 
Party  has  beaten  its  rivals  and  come  into 
control  of  the  Government,  but  for  a 
much  deeper  reason,  namely,  that  a  de- 
mocracy carried  into  industrial  life  is  the 
dominating  principle  of  every  political 
body  that  can  hope  for  success.  Every 
party  must  show  by  its  action  that  it 
values  the  man  more  than  the  dollar. 
To  this  extent  we  are  all  democrats  and 
wishthe  Government  to  act  for  the  people 
as  well  as  to  be  controlled  by  the  people. 
When  we  differ,  it  is  in  deciding  on 
the  means  to  carry  out  our  common  pur- 
pose; and  here  we  differ  very  widely. 
Some  would  use  the  power  of  the  State 


4  SOCIAL   JUSTICE 

to  correct  and  improve  our  system  of  in- 
dustry, and  these  constitute  a  party  of 
reform.  Others  would  abolish  that  sys- 
tem and  substitute  something  untried. 
For  private  capital  they  would  put  public 
capital  and  for  private  management,  pub- 
lic management  —  either  in  the  whole 
field  of  industry  or  in  that  great  part  of 
it  where  large  capital  rules.  These  are  So- 
cialists in  the  modern  and  current  sense 
of  the  term. 

One  difference  of  view  which  was 
formerly  very  sharp  is  now  scarcely  trace- 
able. Every  one  knows  that  we  must 
invoke  the  aid  of  the  State  in  order  to 
make  industry  what  it  should  be.  The 
rule  that  would  bid  the  State  keep  its 
hands  off  the  entire  field  of  business,  the 


WITHOUT   SOCIALISM  5 

extreme  laissez-faire  policy  once  domi- 
nant in  literature  and  thought,  now  finds 
few  persons  bold  enough  to  advocate  it 
or  foolish  enough  to  believe  in  it.  In  a 
very  chastened  form,  however,  the  spirit 
that  would  put  a  reasonable  limit  on  what 
the  State  shall  be  asked  to  do  happily 
does  survive  and  is  powerful.  It  seeks  a 
golden  mean  between  letting  the  State 
do  nothing  and  asking  it  to  do  every- 
thing. It  is  this  plan  of  action  that  I  shall 
try  to  outline,  and  it  will  appear  that  even 
this  plan  requires  that  the  State  should 
do  very  much.  Under  an  inert  govern- 
ment the  industrial  system  would  suffer 
irreparably. 

The  thing  first  to  be  rescued  is  com- 
petition —  meaning    that   healthful    ri- 


6  SOCIAL   JUSTICE 

valry  between  different  producers  which 
has  always  been  the  guaranty  of  techni- 
cal progress.  That  such  progress  has  gone 
on  with  bewildering  rapidity  since  the 
invention  of  the  steam  engine  is  nowhere 
denied ;  and  neither  is  it  denied  that  com- 
petition of  the  normal  kind —  the  effort 
of  rivals  to  excel  in  productive  processes 
—  has  caused  it.  It  has  multiplied  the 
product  of  labor  here  tenfold,  there, 
twentyfold,  and  elsewhere  a  hundred- 
fold and  more. 

This  increased  power  to  produce  has 
rescued  us  from  an  appalling  evil.  With- 
out it,  such  a  crowding  of  population  as 
some  countries  have  experienced  would 
have  carried  their  peoples  to  and  below 
the  starvation  level.  Machinery  now  en- 


WITHOUT   SOCIALISM  7 

ables  us  to  live ;  and  if  world-crowding 
were  to  go  on  in  the  future  as  it  has  done, 
and  the  technical  progress  should  cease, 
many  of  us  could  not  live.  Poverty  would 
increase  till  its  crudest  effects  would  be 
realized  and  lives  enough  would  be 
crushed  out  to  enable  the  survivors  to  get 
a  living.  Of  all  conditions  of  human  hap- 
piness, the  one  which  is  most  underesti- 
mated is  progress  in  power  to  produce. 
Hardly  any  of  those  who  would  revolu- 
tionize the  industrial  State,  and  not  all  of 
those  who  would  reform  it,  have  any 
conception  of  the  importance  of  this 
progress.  It  is  the  sine  qua  non  of  any  hope- 
ful outlook  for  the  future  of  mankind. 
I  am  to  speak,  however,  of  justice  in 
the  business  relations  of  life,  and  it  might 


8  SOCIAL  JUSTICE 

seem  that  this  shut  out  the  mere  question 
of  general  prosperity.  The  most  obvious 
issue  between  different  social  classes  con- 
cerns the  division  of  whatever  income 
exists.  Whatever  there  is,  be  it  large  or 
small,  may  be  divided  rightly  or  wrongly ; 
but  I  am  not  able  to  see  that  the  mere 
division  of  it  exhausts  the  application  of 
the  principle  of  justice.  While  it  is 
clearly  wrong  for  one  party  to  plunder 
another,  it  is  almost  as  clearly  wrong  for 
one  party  to  reduce  the  general  income 
and  so,  in  a  sense,  rob  everybody.  A 
party  that  should  systematically  hinder 
production  and  reduce  its  fruits  would 
rob  a  myriad  of  honest  laborers  who  are 
ill  prepared  to  stand  this  loss  and  have 
a  perfect  right  to  be  protected  from  it. 


WITHOUT   SOCIALISM  9 

Every  man,  woman,  and  child  has  a 
right  to  demand  that  the  powers  that  be 
remove  hindrances  in  the  way  of  pro- 
duction, and  not  only  allow  the  general 
income  to  be  large  and  grow  larger,  but 
do  everything  that  they  possibly  can  do 
to  make  it  grow  larger.  It  is  an  unjust  act 
to  reduce  general  earnings,  even  though 
no  one  is  singled  out  for  particular  in- 
jury. On  this  ground  we  insist  on  trust 
legislation,  tariff  reform,  the  conserva- 
tion of  natural  resources,  etc.  I  am  pre- 
pared to  claim  that  it  is  in  this  spirit 
that  we  demand  that  private  initiative, 
which  has  given  us  the  amount  of  pros- 
perity that  we  have  thus  far  obtained, 
shall  be  enabled  to  continue  its  work 
without  being  supplanted  by  monopoly. 


io  SOCIAL  JUSTICE 

In  a  general  way  I  should  include  public 
monopoly  as  well  as  private  among  the 
things  which  would  put  a  damper  on 
the  progress  of  improvement  and  lessen 
the  income  on  which  the  comfort  of  la- 
borers in  the  near  future  will  be  depend- 
ent. Monopoly  of  any  sort  is  hostile  to 
improvement,  and  in  this  chiefly  lies  the 
menace  which  it  holds  for  mankind. 

It  is  a  fairly  safe  prediction  that,  if  a 
public  monopoly  were  to  exist  in  every 
part  of  the  industrial  field,  the  per  capita 
income  would  grow  less,  and  that  it 
would  be  only  a  question  of  time,  and  a 
short  time  at  that,  when  the  laborers 
would  be  worse  off  than  they  are  now. 
Though,  at  the  outset,  they  might  ab- 
sorb the  entire  incomes  of  the  well-to-do 


WITHOUT   SOCIALISM         n 

classes,  the  amount  thus  gained  would 
shrink  in  their  hands  until  their  position 
would  be  worse  than  their  present  one. 
They  would  have  pulled  down  the  capi- 
talists without  more  than  a  momentary 
benefit  for  themselves  and  with  a  pros- 
pect of  soon  sinking  to  a  lower  level  than 
as  a  class  they  have  thus  far  reached. 

The  impulse  to  revolutionize  the  sys- 
tem comes  from  the  belief  that  it  is  ir- 
reclaimably  bad.  The  first  thing  to  be 
done  is  to  see  how  much  reclaiming  the 
system  is  capable  of;  and  the  only  sure 
way  to  test  this  question  is  to  use  all  our 
power  in  the  effort  to  improve  it.  When 
all  such  efforts  shall  have  failed,  it  will 
be  time  for  desperate  measures. 

Our  industrial  system  has  many  faults : 


12  SOCIAL  JUSTICE 

— here  we  are  happily  agreed.  It  is  the 
inferences  we  draw  from  this  fact  that  are 
different.  The  one  that  I  draw  is  like 
one  which  is  recorded  in  a  famous  case 
in  antiquity.  When  the  Macedonian 
armies  seemed  about  to  overwhelm 
Greece,  Demosthenes  encouraged  the 
Athenians  by  this  very  sound  bit  of  phil- 
osophy :  "  The  worst  fact  in  our  past  af- 
fords the  brightest  hope  for  our  future. 
It  is  the  fact  that  our  misfortunes  have 
come  because  of  our  own  faults.  If  they 
had  come  when  we  were  doing  our  best, 
there  would  be  no  hope  for  us."  Now 
the  evils  of  our  own  social  system  which 
result  from  mistakes  or  faults  are  just 
such  a  ground  of  hope.  Every  such  evil 
which  can  be  cited  describes  one  pos- 


WITHOUT   SOCIALISM         13 

sible  reform,  and  the  longer  the  list  of 
evils,  the  greater  is  the  sum  total  of  gain 
which  we  can  make  by  doing  away  with 
them.  If  we  cite  them  all  seriatim,  what 
impression  shall  we  get  ?  Will  it  merely 
show  how  badly  off  we  are  ?  Will  it 
make  us  despair  for  our  future  ?  On  the 
contrary,  it  should  fill  us  with  hope  for 
the  future.  We  start  from  the  fact  that 
we  have  thus  far  survived  in  spite  of  the 
faults.  The  worst  off  among  us  is  above 
starvation  and  most  of  us  are  in  a  toler- 
able state.  If  we  can  remove  the  evils 
that  exist,  we  shall  make  our  state  very 
much  more  than  tolerable.  The  great- 
ness of  the  evils  measures  the  gain  from 
removing  them.  Every  single  one  that 
is  removed  improves  the  status  of  our 


i4  SOCIAL   JUSTICE 

people.  We  can  take,  as  it  were,  a  social 
account  of  stock,  measure  our  present 
state,  measure  the  extent  to  which  we 
can  improve  it  by  putting  an  end  to  one 
bad  influence,  count  the  number  of  such 
bad  influences,  and  so  get  an  estimate  of 
the  gains  of  carrying  out  a  complete  re- 
formatory programme.  It  will  show  an 
enormous  possibility  of  improvement. 

In  the  struggle  for  reforms  we  have 
the  great  middle  class  with  us.  All  hon- 
est capitalists,  great  and  small  alike,  are 
natural  allies  of  honest  labor,  and  they 
are  interested  mainly  in  the  same  reforms 
as  are  the  members  of  the  working-class. 
If  we  recognize  a  necessity  for  a  strug- 
gle of  classes,  it  is  not  one  that  marshals 
labor  against  all  wealth.  The  contention 


WITHOUT   SOCIALISM         15 

is  rather  between  honest  wealth  allied 
with  honest  labor,  on  the  one  hand,  and 
dishonest  wealth  on  the  other ;  and  in  a 
contest  so  aligned,  victory  for  the  former 
party  means  social  justice. 

There  is  a  preliminary  reform  to  be 
carried  through  as  a  condition  of  secur- 
ing most  of  the  others.  Who  can  esti- 
mate the  benefit  which  would  come 
from  merely  making  our  Government 
what  it  purports  to  be  —  government  by 
the  people  ?  The  initiative,  the  referen- 
dum, the  recall,  the  short  ballot,  direct 
primaries,  and  proportionate  representa- 
tion are  all  designed  to  transfer  power 
from  rings  and  bosses  to  the  people  them- 
selves. If  they  actually  do  it,  as  sooner 
or  later  those  or  kindred  measures  prob- 


1 6  SOCIAL   JUSTICE 

ably  will,  they  will  so  far  restore  the 
democracy  of  our  earlier  and  simpler 
days  as  to  make  us  look  back  on  the  rule 
of  rings  and  bosses  as  on  a  nightmare  of 
the  past.  When  the  Government  is  thus 
really  controlled  by  the  people  we  can 
count  on  having  its  full  power  exerted 
for  them. 

What  are  a  few  of  the  things  that  we 
shall  then  try  to  get? 

The  working  day  is  too  long.  In  some 
occupations  it  covers  far  too  many  hours, 
and  in  most  occupations  it  covers  more 
than  it  ideally  should.  There  are  doubt- 
less some  industries  in  which  hours  might 
be  reduced  with  no  lessening  of  wages, 
because  profits  are  large  enough  to  bear 
some  reduction.  In  these  cases  a  strong 


WITHOUT   SOCIALISM         17 

union  might  get  either  more  pay  for  a 
day  of  the  present  length  or  the  present 
rate  for  a  shorter  day.  A  universal  re- 
duction of  the  period  of  labor  would 
have  to  mean  a  reduction  of  the  product 
of  industry,  and  without  immediate  im- 
provements in  method  of  production  it 
would  entail  smaller  wages.  Improve- 
ments, however,  might  soon  obviate  that 
necessity.  With  machinery  growing 
more  and  more  efficient,  the  day  may  be 
shortened  with  no  diminution  of  wages; 
and  the  natural  effect  of  increasing 
power  to  produce  has  always  been  some 
shortening  of  labor-time  coupled  with 
some  enlargement  of  pay.  Within 
the  last  one  hundred  years  the  period 
of  daily  labor  in  some  types  of  manu- 


1 8  SOCIAL   JUSTICE 

facturing  has  come  to  cover  only  a  little 
over  one  third  of  the  twenty-four  hours, 
instead  of  more  nearly  two  thirds;  while 
the  earnings  have  become  much  larger 
than  they  were  at  the  beginning  of  the 
period.  Normally  this  progress  should 
continue,  and  long  before  the  dawn  of 
the  twenty-first  century  we  should  see 
work  still  less  severe,  less  prolonged,  and 
better  paid.  Where,  as  in  some  depart- 
ments of  steel-making,  labor  in  two  shifts 
continues  through  the  twenty-four  hours, 
there  is  a  chance  to  make  this  gain  with- 
out appreciable  waiting;  and  elsewhere 
it  should  be  possible  to  make  it  without 
waiting  for  the  twenty-first  century  to 
come  much  nearer  than  it  is. 

Dangerous  and  injurious  occupations 


WITHOUT   SOCIALISM        19 

still  continue ;  and  our  country  is  slower 
than  others  in  remedying  this  trouble. 
Many  safeguards  that  are  easily  obtain- 
able are  neglected.  Protection  for  the 
workers  and  indemnities  for  injuries 
when  they  occur  can  be  insured  by  well- 
made  laws,  properly  enforced.  Sanitary 
regulations  and  pure-food  laws  need  to 
be  strengthened  and  more  fully  enforced. 
Our  protective  tariff  bears  heavily  on 
the  poor  man.  His  wardrobe  contains 
little  or  nothing  that  is  made  of  wool, 
and  he  may  well  sigh  for  the  mixed  cot- 
ton and  shoddy  of  earlier  days.  Our  im- 
port duties,  which  do,  indeed,  try  to 
spare  his  dinner-pail,  should  be  made  to 
spare  his  wardrobe  and  the  modest  com- 
forts of  his  life. 


20  SOCIAL   JUSTICE 

Commercial  crises  still  occur  and  are 
followed  by  hard  times;  and  while  a 
really  wise  reform  of  money  and  bank- 
ing would  not  wholly  prevent  them,  it 
would  greatly  mitigate  their  severity.1 

Emergency  employment  is  desperately 
needed  when  hard  times  come.  Euro- 
pean Governments  excel  our  own  in  pro- 
viding it,  but  it  is  entirely  possible  to 
adopt  their  methods  and  improve  on 
them. 

Our  natural  resources  have  been  wasted 
in  a  prodigal  way.  Forests  have  been 
recklessly  cut,  fires  been  invited  and  the 
soil  itself  has  been  sacrificed.  Natural 
gas  and  oil  have  been  burned  with  no 

1  This  was  written  before  the  recent  reforms  of  import 
duties  and  of  the  banking  system  had  been  enacted. 


WITHOUT   SOCIALISM         21 

regard  for  the  future.  Coal  and  other 
minerals  have  not  been  husbanded.  It 
should  be  possible  for  us  to  cease  to  play 
the  spendthrift  with  the  patrimony  that 
nature  has  given  to  us. 

We  have  the  beginnings  of  a  parcel 
post,  but  we  need  a  more  highly  de- 
veloped one  that  will  come  nearer  to  the 
standards  maintained  in  other  countries. 
With  it  we  need  telephone  and  telegraph 
systems  that  can  be  universally  used. 

In  our  larger  cities,  we  are  struggling 
to  get  rapid  transit  and  shall  have  to  con- 
tinue the  struggle ;  but  we  ought  to  have, 
with  urban  railroads,  subways,  and  the 
like,  measures  that  would  reduce  the 
amount  of  traveling  that  has  to  be  done 
between  homes  and  places  of  labor.  A 


ii  SOCIAL   JUSTICE 

free  use  of  the  principle  of  "eminent 
domain"  would  make  it  possible  to  ac- 
quire land  for  carrying  out  any  policy 
of  general  beneficence,  and  that,  too, 
without  robbing  the  owners  of  it.  By  re- 
sorting to  this  measure  much  of  the 
manufacturing  which  exposes  great  cities 
to  imminent  danger  of  conflagration 
might  and  should  be  moved  bodily  to 
outlying  districts. 

Of  all  industrial  abuses  of  the  past  the 
crudest  has  been  the  crushing  of  the  life 
of  young  children  by  hard  and  prolonged 
labor.  We  are  making  headway  in  re- 
moving this  evil,  but  much  still  remains 
to  be  gained;  and  a  vast  amount  is  to  be 
gained  by  a  comprehensive  policy  for 
improving  the  status  of  working-women. 


WITHOUT   SOCIALISM        23 

Social  justice  demands  some  effective 
means  of  getting  legal  justice.  We  have 
courts,  certainly.  Do  they  give  the  serv- 
ice that  we  need  and,  in  particular,  do 
they  give  it  to  the  poor  ?  We  do  not 
here  impugn  the  motives  of  judges. 
Generally  speaking,  they  are  honest ;  but 
the  whole  system  of  court  procedure  is 
hampered  by  detailed  statutes  and  techni- 
cal rules,  that  mean  an  amount  of  cost 
and  delay  which  in  itself  is  the  very 
quintessence  of  injustice.  A  citizen  is 
offered  a  choice  between  submitting  to 
the  wrong  inflicted  by  a  fellow-citizen 
and  accepting  the  wrong  inflicted  by  a 
dilatory  and  crushingly  costly  legal  pro- 
cedure. We  probably  excel  some  nations 
in  the  rightfulness  of  the  decisions  we 


24  SOCIAL   JUSTICE 

can  get  if  we  live  long  enough  and  have 
money  enough  to  get  them;  but  there 
are  few  civilized  nations  that  do  not  ex- 
cel us  in  the  rapidity  and  cheapness  of  the 
process.  A  Chinese  student  in  Columbia 
University  served,  during  the  first  year 
of  his  residence  in  New  York,  as  judge 
of  Chinatown,  and,  by  giving  up  only 
the  Saturday  evening  of  each  week  to 
the  service,  he  settled  the  disputes  which 
arose  between  Chinese  residents.  As  he 
was  learned  in  the  principles  of  Confu- 
cius, I  doubt  not  he  settled  them  justly, 
and  many  a  time  in  that  same  city  I 
have  sighed  for  his  services  for  native 
Americans. 

The  line  of  division  between  labor  and 
capital  ought  not  always  to  be  the  sharp 


WITHOUT   SOCIALISM         25 

boundary  that  it  is.  Labor  should  be  en- 
abled to  acquire  a  modest  share  of  capi- 
tal and  to  invest  it  securely.  Protection 
for  small  investments  is  urgently  needed, 
and  would  do  much  to  change  a  prole- 
tariat into  an  independent  working- 
class.  This  is  an  essential  feature  of  the 
social  system  we  wish  for  and  work  for. 
The  man  who  hereafter  shall  corre- 
spond to  Longfellow's  "village  black- 
smith" will  perhaps  be  the  owner  of  a 
hundred  shares  in  some  corporation.  In 
agriculture  small  holdings  may  always 
survive ;  but  there  may  be  large  ones  also, 
and  in  that  case  the  farmer  of  the  future 
may  have  either  five  acres  and  a  hoe,  or 
forty  acres  and  a  mule,  or  a  hundred  and 
sixty  acres  and  a  reaper,  or  an  undivided 


26  SOCIAL  JUSTICE 

share  in  a  thousand  acres  and  a  traction 
engine. 

If  we  could  carry  through  even  the 
reforms  thus  far  enumerated,  it  would 
make  us  feel  as  if  we  had  been  lifted 
from  a  slough  and  placed  on  a  plateau 
abounding  in  air  and  sunlight ;  but  if 
we  stopped  with  this,  we  should  leave 
much  to  be  desired.  There  are  still  more 
pressing  measures  to  be  enacted. 

Nearly  the  greatest  evil  we  are  facing 
is  monopoly.  This  is  not  the  universal 
view.  Though  there  are  few  who  ap- 
prove of  monopoly,  there  are  those  who 
regard  it  with  toleration  and  think  that, 
if  we  accept  it  and  regulate  prices  under 
it,  we  shall  fare  sufficiently  well.  As  yet, 
it  is  in  an  incipient  stage  of  development 


WITHOUT   SOCIALISM        27 

and  has  by  no  means  revealed  its  full 
power  for  evil.  If  we  let  it  grow  freely, 
we  shall  find  later  what  it  is  capable  of. 
Wise  measures,  adopted  even  now,  will 
come  early  enough  to  prevent  it  from 
ever  growing  to  maturity. 

With  the  steel  trust,  the  Standard  Oil 
trust,  and  other  combinations  before  our 
eyes,  it  seems  an  absurdity  to  speak  of 
monopolies  as  being  in  an  incipient  stage. 
Is  it  possible  that  anything  whatever 
which  these  great  combinations  repre- 
sent can  be  nipped  in  the  bud  ?  Are  they 
not  already  in  the  fullest  flower,  and  big 
and  mature  as  they  are  ever  likely  to  be  ? 
The  companies  themselves,  with  their 
vast  material  plants,  certainly  are  so. 
What  we  are  talking  about,  however, 


28  SOCIAL  JUSTICE 

is  not  the  mere  size  of  the  companies, 
but  the  element  of  monopoly  that  is  in  them. 
Have  they  such  a  power  that  they  can 
safely  charge  anything  they  please  for 
their  products  ?  Is  it  as  though  they  were 
licensed  by  the  Government  to  be  the 
sole  makers  and  vendors  of  their  special 
wares  ?  Business  men  know  that  this  is 
not  the  case ;  and  that  something  puts  a 
check  on  their  action.  They  can  make 
their  prices  higher  than  they  should  be 
—  higher  than  it  is  for  the  interest  of  the 
country  to  have  them;  but  they  cannot 
make  them  as  high  as  they  would  be 
under  a  real  and  secure  monopoly.  The 
point  I  am  making  is  that  we  can  de- 
stroy such  monopolistic  power  as  they 
have.  We  can  liberate  competition, 


WITHOUT   SOCIALISM        29 

which  has,  in  the  main,  afforded  reason- 
able prices,  and  has  also  guaranteed  that 
progress  which  is  indispensable  for  main- 
taining a  human  life  that  is  worth  living. 
It  is  to-day  the  only  means  of  insuring 
a  constantly  increasing  power  over  na- 
ture —  an  ability  to  turn  out,  in  greater 
and  greater  abundance,  the  things  which 
make  life  comfortable. 

These  combinations  now  possess  a 
power  which  it  is  highly  perilous  to  let 
them  keep.  They  can  disable  their  rivals 
by  foul  play,  which  would  be  impossible 
under  proper  rules  of  the  ring.  By  secur- 
ing control  of  raw  materials,  by  selling 
goods  below  cost  in  the  territory  where 
a  small  rival  is  operating  and  keeping  up 
the  prices  everywhere  else,  by  forcing 


30  SOCIAL   JUSTICE 

merchants  to  boycott  independent  manu- 
facturers, by  getting,  in  spite  of  laws  and 
commissions,  some  advantages  from  rail- 
roads, and  by  other  similar  practices, 
they  can  drive  competitors  out  of  busi- 
ness. Yet  every  one  of  these  practices 
can  be  defined  and  prohibited,  and  re- 
sorting to  any  of  them  can  be,  if  not 
wholly  prevented,  at  least  made  so  peril- 
ous that  the  practices  will  become  ex- 
tinct. 

It  is  possible  to  give  to  every  com- 
petitor a  fair  field  and  no  favor,  and,  in 
so  doing,  to  infuse  again  into  the  indus- 
trial system  the  life  and  vigor  which 
competition  guarantees.  This  and  only 
this  will  insure  that  progress  in  produc- 
tion itself  which  is  the  sine  qua  non  of 


WITHOUT   SOCIALISM        31 

future  comfort.  It  may  then  be  expected 
that  inventions  will  continue,  that  ma- 
chines will  become  more  perfect,  and 
that  the  power  of  society  to  pay  wages 
will  grow  larger.  Labor  will  then  be  the 
heir  of  the  centuries,  and  under  proper 
laws  can  claim  and  get  its  inheritance. 
If  the  world  crowds  itself  fuller  and 
fuller  of  population  and  progress  at  the 
same  time  stagnates,  nothing  can  pre- 
vent an  increase  of  poverty  unrelieved 
by  any  bright  outlook.  Technical  prog- 
ress, power  to  make  two  blades  of  grass 
grow  where  one  grows  now,  and  to  do 
it  in  the  various  departments  where  men 
labor,  is  the  sole  condition  of  a  sound 
hope  for  the  future  of  the  wage-earner. 
It  will  be  as  necessary  under  Socialism 


32  SOCIAL  JUSTICE 

as  under  the  present  system;  but  under 
Socialism  it  will  be  difficult  to  get.  In 
so  far  as  it  is  possible  to  judge,  it  depends 
on  the  preservation  of  normal  compe- 
tition in  the  general  economic  field. 

Leaders  of  the  Industrial  Workers  of 
the  World  have  recently  announced  an 
intention  of  forcing  the  hours  of  labor 
downward  from  ten  hours  per  day  to 
eight,  six,  and  finally,  four,  while  at  the 
same  time  the  pay  will  be  forced  up  in 
a  more  or  less  corresponding  ratio.  They 
have  also  announced  an  intention  of  mak- 
ing capital  useless  to  its  owners,  by  crip- 
pling its  productive  power,  and  so  making 
it  easier  to  seize  it.  It  goes  without  say- 
ing that  a  four-hour  day  and  high  wages 
can  never  come  by  a  war  which  destroys 


WITHOUT    SOCIALISM        33 

most  of  the  income  to  be  divided.  Make 
the  figures  more  moderate  and  allow  time 
enough  for  it,  and  it  may  be  made  to 
come  by  the  diametrically  opposite  plan 
of  making  industry  more  and  more  fruit- 
ful. The  ten-hour  day  succeeded  the 
twelve-  or  fourteen-hour  one  of  former 
times  in  exactly  that  way. 

The  division  of  the  social  income  is 
of  vital  importance  as  well  as  the  general 
size  of  it.  I  have  claimed  for  the  regu- 
lation of  monopoly  that  it  is  nearly  the 
greatest  of  possible  reforms.  Perhaps  the 
very  greatest  is  a  change  in  the  mode  of 
adjusting  wages.  They  are  fixed  at  pres- 
ent in  a  rough-and-ready  way,  though 
not  without  some  reference  to  what  labor 
produces  and  what  employers  can  pay, 


34  SOCIAL  JUSTICE 

and  not,  therefore,  without  the  action 
of  a  principle  which  makes,  in  a  power- 
ful way,  for  justice.  Any  method,  how- 
ever, which  involves  many  strikes  and 
lockouts,  is  bad  economically  and  worse 
morally.  The  contests  are  always  costly, 
and  they  easily  run  into  violent  warfare; 
but  underneath  all  these  struggles  and 
the  hates  and  horrors  that  result,  there  is 
working,  if  we  will  see  it,  a  law  that 
makes  for  peace  founded  on  justice.  It 
tends  in  the  direction  of  a  fair  division 
of  products  between  employers  and  em- 
ployed, and  if  it  could  work  entirely 
without  hindrances,  would  actually  give 
to  every  laborer  substantially  what  he 
produces.  In  the  midst  of  all  prevalent 
abuses  this  basic  law  asserts  itself  like 


WITHOUT   SOCIALISM        35 

a  law  of  gravitation,  and  so  long  as  mo- 
nopoly is  excluded  and  competition  is 
free, — so  long  as  both  labor  and  capital 
can  move  without  hindrance  to  the 
points  at  which  they  can  create  the  largest 
products  and  get  the  largest  rewards — its 
action  cannot  be  stopped,  while  that  of 
the  forces  that  disturb  it  can  be  so.  In 
this  is  the  most  inspiriting  fact  for  the 
social  reformer.  If  there  are  "inspira- 
tion points"  on  the  mountain-tops  of 
science,  as  well  as  on  those  of  nature, 
this  is  one  of  them,  and  it  is  reached 
whenever  a  man  discovers  that  in  a  highly 
imperfect  society  the  fundamental  law 
makes  for  justice,  that  it  is  impossible  to 
prevent  it  from  working  and  that  it  is 
entirely  possible  to  remove  the  hindrances 


36  SOCIAL   JUSTICE 

it  encounters  and  let  it  have  the  first 
play.  Nature  is  behind  the  reformer, 
often  unseen,  always  efficient,  and,  in  the 
end,  resistless.  To  get  a  glimpse  of  what 
it  can  do  and  what  man  can  help  it  do  is 
to  get  a  vision  of  the  kingdoms  of  the 
earth,  and  the  glory  of  them  —  a  glory 
that  may  come  from  a  moral  redemption 
of  the  economic  system.  It  is  a  redemp- 
tion that  man  and  nature  can  together 
bring  about  if  only  man  himself  is  worthy 
of  this  alliance. 

Differences  of  mere  interest  between 
the  various  social  classes  are  inevitable. 
There  will  never  be  a  time  when,  in  the 
division  of  any  common  property,  the 
mere  bald  interests  of  the  claimants  are 
alike.  When  two  fishermen  own  one 


WITHOUT   SOCIALISM        37 

boat  and  fish  together,  each  one  is  in- 
terested in  taking  the  whole  catch.  They 
divide,  however,  by  a  fair  rule  and  live  in 
peace.  Any  similar  division  may  proceed 
in  harmony  if  what  the  parties  want  is 
justice.  Till  recently  American  work- 
men have  lived  with  their  employers 
without  hating  them  ;  and  if  wages  can 
be  fixed  now  by  some  appeal  to  the  prin- 
ciple of  justice,  they  can  live  with  them 
in  that  way  again.  This  means  a  better 
method  of  adjudicating  claims  than  by 
a  crude  test  of  strength.  There  is  no 
time  to  discuss  a  scheme  by  which  this 
can  be  done.  I  must  claim  that  it  can 
be  done,  and  take  the  responsibility  of 
proving  it  when  more  time  is  available. 
There  are  beginnings  of  a  good  method 


38  SOCIAL  JUSTICE 

in  New  Zealand,  in  Australia,  and  in 
Canada,  and  the  point  I  am  making  now 
is  that  if  we  get  a  plan  which  works  well 
in  the  United  States,  we  shall  save  a  de- 
plorable waste  and  do  more  to  revive 
the  spirit  of  fraternity  than  we  can  by 
any  measure  ever  attempted.  Struggles 
of  classes  there  may  be,  as  there  are  be- 
tween buyers  and  sellers  everywhere ;  but 
this  need  not  make  the  parties  enemies. 
Its  effects  do  not  need  to  extend  to  the 
heart  and  character  and  to  put  distrust 
and  hatred  in  the  place  of  confidence 
and  good  will.  The  moral  effects  of  this 
reform  will  be  the  best  ones,  but  the 
economic  effects  also  will  be  vast  and 
beneficent. 

I  am  not  predicting  a  complete  mil- 


WITHOUT   SOCIALISM        39 

lennium  merely  as  the  result  of  the  re- 
forms I  have  described.  That  would 
require  also  the  moral  perfection  of  the 
human  race.  Not  a  little  moral  improve- 
ment is  to  be  expected  as  the  effect  of 
these  measures,  but  it  is  too  much  to 
claim  that  they  will  repress  all  vice  and 
crime,  reclaim  all  criminals,  and  give  to 
the  race  generally  a  keen  devotion  to 
duty.  A  belief  in  a  State  where  even  this 
will  be  realized  is  deeply  implanted  in 
human  nature,  and  Socialism  itself  might 
easily  get  a  major  premise  from  it.  The 
syllogism  would  run  thus :  ( i )  A  better 
State  is  bound  to  come.  (2)  It  cannot 
come  under  the  system  of  private  capital. 
(3)  Therefore  that  system  must  be 
abolished.  So  would  we  all  say  if  the 


40  SOCIAL   JUSTICE 

minor  premise  were  true  —  "The  good 
State  is  impossible  under  private  capital." 
We  claim  that  it  is  possible  and  that  we 
can  see  how  to  realize  it.  We  can  trace 
the  forces  which,  without  revolution, 
will  make  work  lighter,  pay  better. 
We  also  can  make  a  syllogism,  and  it 
reads  thus:  (i)  The  present  State  is 
tolerable.  (2)  Every  reform  will  make  it 
better,  and  there  are  many  to  be  made. 
(3)  The  coming  State  will  be  whatever 
we  have  wit  and  energy  enough  to  make 
it. 

Our  plea  for  the  justice  of  the  coming 
system  will  not  convince  any  man  who 
starts  with  the  assertion  that  capital 
ought  to  have  no  return  whatever,  and 
that  interest  is  robbery,  and  that  the  men 


WITHOUT   SOCIALISM        41 

who  bring  empty  hands  to  the  mill 
should  take  all  the  product  of  it.  To 
most  men's  instinctive  judgment  this 
view  does  not  appeal.  The  general  ver- 
dict is  that  it  is  right  for  capital  to  get 
something. 

If  we  are  fishing  together  from  the 
shore  and  I  make  a  canoe  which  multi- 
plies my  catch  by  five,  I  have  a  right  to 
the  extra  return  which  my  new  instru- 
ment gives  me.  If  my  neighbor  asks  me 
to  lend  it  to  him  and  I  do  so,  I  deprive 
myself  of  the  extra  product  I  have  been 
getting  by  means  of  it,  and  it  is  right  for 
him  to  pay  me  interest  on  the  cost  of  the 
boat.  He  can  do  it  and  make  money  by 
the  transaction.  If  his  catch  is  now  five 
times  what  it  was,  he  can  afford  to  pay 


4i  SOCIAL  JUSTICE 

me  a  part  of  the  extra  return  and  still 
be  better  off  than  he  was  before. 

If  my  share  is  still  large,  other  men 
will  make  boats  and  offer  them  for  hire. 
They  will  compete  in  lending  them  till 
a  modest  percentage  of  the  cost  is  all  that 
any  owner  can  get.  The  borrowers  will 
then  get  the  major  benefit.  This  implies 
competition  and  shows  the  necessity  of 
preserving  it. 

If,  in  lieu  of  lending  my  canoe,  I  per- 
suade another  man  to  take  it  and  fish 
for  me,  I  shall  have  to  give  him  more 
fish  than  he  was  originally  catching ; 
and  the  more  the  boats  multiply,  the 
larger  the  share  which  will  have  to  be 
given  to  the  men  who  are  hired  to  work 
them,  and  the  smaller  the  share  which 


WITHOUT   SOCIALISM        43 

will  be  kept  by  the  owner  of  any  one 
boat.  Under  a  normal  condition,  multiplying 
capital  means  in  itself  higher  wages.  Higher 
wages  mean  that  laborers,  in  the  end, 
begin  to  get  boats  of  their  own,  or 
shares  in  boats,  and  that  the  laboring- 
class  and  the  capitalist  class  are  more 
and  more  merged.  Invention  —  that  is, 
devising  and  introducing  canoes  —  and 
accumulation  of  capital  —  that  is,  active 
canoe-building  —  mean  for  laborers 
higher  pay  and  a  chance  to  save  capital. 
Do  you  tell  me  that  this  is  a  primitive 
State,  an  Eden  of  the  past  and  hopelessly 
vanished  from  the  present  earth ;  that  it 
is  a  lost  Paradise  whose  gates  are  forever 
barred  ?  The  whole  point  of  the  eco- 
nomic study  of  which  I  have  given  the 


44  SOCIAL  JUSTICE 

briefest  outline  is  that  it  is  practicable  to 
create  in  complex  modern  life  the  most 
essential  condition  of  this  primitive  life 
—  its  tendency  toward  justice.  In  the 
Scriptures  the  primitive  Eden  was  a  gar- 
den, but  the  New  Jerusalem  is  a  city. 
What  we  have  before  us  for  study  is  a 
vast  centralized  economic  system  suggest- 
ing the  city;  and  we  have  to  see  what 
can  be  made  of  it. 

It  is  something  extremely  good.  The 
late  Edward  Atkinson  was  fond  of  saying 
that,  if  improvements  are  allowed  to  do 
their  best,  the  time  will  come  when,  as 
he  expressed  it, "  it  will  not  pay  to  be 
rich."  The  workers  will  be  so  comfort- 
able that  the  care  of  a  great  capital  will 
more  than  offset  any  additional  comfort 


WITHOUT   SOCIALISM        45 

a  man  can  get  by  owning  it.  Grotesquely 
exaggerated  as  this  claim  may  appear  to 
be,  it  was  based  on  serious  economic 
study.  There  are  forces  at  work  which, 
if  they  have  free  play,  will  carry  human 
life  very  far  in  the  direction  of  the  State 
so  described,  with  its  comfort,  content- 
ment, and  fraternity. 

That  fraternity  is  possible  in  spite  of 
sharp  contention  is  clear  whenever  ath- 
letic teams  meet  and  celebrate  a  game 
which  has  been  a  victory  for  one  and  a 
defeat  for  the  other ;  and  the  parties  that 
contend  in  the  great  industrial  field  may 
be  equally  brotherly  if  they  play  fairly. 
Foul  play  always  means  enmity,  and  fair 
play,  friendship.  The  finest  possible  type 
of  character  grows  up  in  the  course  of 


46  SOCIAL  JUSTICE 

keen  but  honorable  rivalry.  The  noblest 
manhood  that  can  anywhere  be  de- 
veloped would  come  from  competing 
vigorously  in  the  market  and  living 
together  as  brothers  when  the  contest 
closes.  The  beaten  man  may  not  enjoy 
his  defeat,  but  he  may  act  rightly  and  feel 
rightly  toward  the  victor.  Develop  in 
these  economic  contests  the  sense  of  jus- 
tice—  let  both  parties  seek  to  follow  a 
rule  of  right  —  and  men's  hearts,  at  least, 
will  not  need  to  be  embittered.  You  will 
then  see  a  contest,  which,  when  it  is 
waged  with  bombs  and  bludgeons,  looks 
like  a  Sheol,  so  changed  that  it  shall  open 
the  way  to  a  transformed  world  and 
make  the  hope  of  a  future  Eden  no  day- 
dream, but  a  scientific  deduction  from 


WITHOUT  SOCIALISM  47 
cosmic  law.  We  may  build  a  new  earth 
out  of  the  difficult  material  we  have  to 
work  with,  and  cause  justice  and  kind- 
ness to  rule  in  the  very  place  where  strife 
now  holds  sway.  A  New  Jerusalem  may 
actually  arise  out  of  the  fierce  conten- 
tions of  the  modern  market.  The  wrath 
of  men  may  praise  God  and  his  Kingdom 
may  come,  not  in  spite  of,  but  by  means 
of  the  contests  of  the  economic  sphere. 
Socialism  can  have  no  monopoly  of 
beatific  visions.  It  offers  much  in  that 
direction.  It  draws  a  picture  of  a  future 
State  of  great  riches  and  general  equality; 
and  the  picture  is  glorified  by  a  vision  of 
general  brotherhood.  To  some  this  seems 
more  attractive  than  any  other  which  im- 
agination can  create.  I  confess  to  a  prefer- 


48  SOCIAL  JUSTICE 

ence  for  a  prospect  which  assures,  before 
all  else,  the  continuance  of  progress,  and 
shows  humanity  striving  to  make  forward 
steps  and  actually  making  them  so  long 
as  the  universe  shall  exist.  As  between 
a  stationary  paradise  and  a  progressive 
purgatory,  I  should  prefer  the  latter,  for 
the  sake  of  the  permanent  well-being  of 
the  human  race ;  but  what  I  should  choose 
in  preference  to  either  is  a  progressive 
paradise.  The  capacity  for  further  im- 
provement is  the  essential  trait  of  the 
best  condition  now  in  sight.  The  re- 
former can  point  to  his  delectable  moun- 
tains and  trace  an  unending  route  to  and 
over  them,  as  they  rise  range  beyond  range 
and  lose  themselves  in  the  distance.  Men 
are,  in  general,  following  the  route,  and 


WITHOUT   SOCIALISM        49 

each  generation  advances  beyond  the 
point  attained  by  its  predecessor.  Every 
step  is  forward  and  upward,  and  the 
nearest  goal  will  soon  be  reached  and 
passed.  Our  descendants  will  reach  a 
better  and  more  distant  goal  and  then 
press  on  to  something  remoter  and  still 
better.  Again  and  again  barriers  seem- 
ingly insurmountable  will  be  passed. 
The  impossibility  of  to-day  will  be  the 
reality  of  to-morrow,  and  the  dazzling 
vision  of  to-day  will  be  the  reality  of  the 
future  and  the  starting-point  for  still 
grander  achievements. 


L.1FORNIA 

U*1VEFSI  oLLEGE 

c. 


fltfa 

CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U    .    S    .   A 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

Santa  Barbara  College  Library 
Santa  Barbara,  California 

Return  to  desk  from  which  borrowed. 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


-r^ 


LD  21-10m-10,'48 
(Bllils4)476 


HN 
6U 


